Chapter Twenty-Three
Varis
Fish had been a staple of his diet for so long that he’d sworn he’d never have a bite of it again, and there he was, catching a scent of it delicately roasting in an oven, lemon and pepper wafting past him, and every nerve in his body told him to enjoy the gift.
What fucking gift? Vile, flaky mush meat!
No! I refuse. Varis sulked internally, doing his best to keep his face neutral as his mate and brother-in-law spoke of the old days, remembering their father and mother fondly until food was served, and Varis, presented with the option of having lamb or fish, chose both. Both was good, right?
Ghreid and Draenvir ate together, leaning close to one another while Varis’s fathers squirmed in their seats, practically vibrating with questions.
Varis knew the barrage of questions to come would eventually explode the moment Graylan arrived to give his verdict and prove what Varis already knew.
And despite the lack of Graylan’s verification, Ghreid reached over to Varis periodically to touch his side, his belly, his thigh, as if he could discern something or bring comfort.
Still, Varis wasn’t certain how he should react, how he should celebrate or mourn, or what. And the boring eyes of his fathers was second only to the burning questions he had of his own.
Dessert came and went, and they retired soon after, taking to the solar while Ghreid and Draenvir tried to occupy their uneasy minds with plans for a future in the independent Saurian ports.
Draenvir was remarkably well suited toward infrastructure as well, and having him there brought another kind of ease to Ghreid that Varis loved to see.
They were brothers closer than Varis had ever been with any of his.
The fact occurred to him he hadn’t asked about any of them, and he turned his head toward his fathers. “How are Tikum and Lyf?”
Finem, Varis’s father, his Apa, blinked in surprise. “Tikum was married last year to a Rammolian girl, and they took an inheritance of a trading vessel north. Last letter I received from him said they were prospering and no children of yet. Lyf…”
Varis pursed his lips as his father trailed off.
Lyf had been a freewheeler, undedicated to anything and lacking aspirations.
And because of the agreements they’d made with the family, their daughters, Varis’s sisters, were shipped off as they were born, four of them.
Varis only knew one of their names, but they belonged to the second Rashiz as bargaining chips in their hierarchy.
Much like ashen in Monsmount and Rammolia, daughters of the Rashiz were prized for their fair features and noble blood, given only in marriage after years of etiquette, training, and approval.
Marriages were arranged, but not forced.
Those who didn’t find an acceptable partner were given to the temple to live as they saw fit.
The world wasn’t black and white, but still.
Varis didn’t feel entitled to ask of them until that moment.
“Father, were any of my other siblings ashen, like me?” Varis glanced at his father.
“No. After you, all our children were checked. There are others, though. If we end this, we’ll send them to Sauria for a negotiated rate.” Apa rested a hand on Nen’s arm.
“Far less than what was asked of you. You were…special.” Mykel cleared his throat. “I think they’re asking for six daven each.”
“The price of two cows… What a commoner’s life is worth.” Varis shook his head. “Plus transportation, I assume. How many at the time?”
“A passenger ship for the first. We have over a dozen I know of, isn’t that right, Mykel?” Apa glanced toward Nen who nodded.
“I promise you we didn’t come with our hands outstretched for money alone.” Nen didn’t look as if he believed his own words. “It’s merely how things are. Your new world has a need, and Finem’s new regime will fill it. The sacrifices can be in gold.”
“Gold is a powerful thing to dragons.” Ghreid spoke up, interrupting their conversation. “We part from it so easily. But the type of gold… You’re avoiding something.”
“With your parents’ passing, I feel terrible to mention—” Apa fell back in his chair and sighed so heavily, he almost deflated, like one of those seabirds settling their feathers. “Living gold.”
“Six daven of living gold?” Draenvir sneered.
“We’re not… Living gold is useful for a dragon, but gold at its final fading—that’s when the priests can use it. The last flecks of magic left in it.” Nen clasped his hands.
“Spent gold. Right before it dies.” Ghreid glanced over at Draenvir, and they shrugged at one another. “We do decommission it rather than let it spend its last. We could part with it.”
“May cause some problems… But for the ashen.” Draenvir rubbed at his chin. “Let’s make it religious.”
Ghreid raised a brow. “Explain.”
“We get a clergy of dragons and have them take the ashen as acolytes to our fates. Maybe train bedservants there, too. Our current selection of bedservants is remarkably predictable.” Draenvir stared at his nails and grumbled.
“And not to upset the fates, we call it a religion of the mind, scholars of the fates, yes?”
Ghreid rubbed at his chin. “Rath would need to clear it, but I approve wholeheartedly.”
“The fates did say Falustus should be given the temple.” Varis twisted his lips and glanced to Ghreid who nodded.
Draenvir stared at Varis with wide eyes. “Truly?”
“I think. It’s not something I’m exactly accustomed to, the fates.” Varis shrugged a single shoulder.
“Then this is what needs to be. I’ll inform Rath.” Draenvir pulled a notebook from his side and a contraption of a pen that he twisted and drew a messy note with. Varis leaned over to watch with fascination.
“What is that?” Varis pointed to the strange pen.
A metal tube had been situated with a strange tip that he screwed a cap onto in a hurry.
“It’s a take on the scribe’s dip pens that I’ve muddled with, and it wicks ink from inside its chassis into a packed wheat stem that I’ve sharpened to a point. It’s crude and leaks, but it’s proving to be handy.” Ghreid handed the device over to allow Varis to investigate.
Varis turned it over in his hands and studied it, removing the cap with a gentle twist. “There’s a type of reed that grows wild in Kaliman. We set them in scented oils and they throw the fragrance via evaporation. Something about tiny tubules. They’re very firm, too.”
Ghreid stared over, enamored with Varis’s observations.
“Would you mind if my father got a look?” Varis glanced up to Draenvir who nodded as Varis gave it one more turn.
The tip had pooled a little too much ink in the cap, leaving the body of it dirty from touch.
The tip was worn, smushed, and frayed, making it rather like painting with a crippled brush.
The pores of a rattan reed would definitely carry the ink…
Draenvir craned his neck as Apa studied it and bobbed his head side to side. “Ink is particulate. It would clog. Mykel?”
“What if you load it full of a dye? That green dye from oak galls would work because it’s more of a dye.” Nen nodded his head.
“That does sound interesting.” Ghreid rubbed his chin. “A devil to get out of clothes, though.”
“Such are sacrifices, but you might find it leaks less if you do this.” Mykel handed it back across the table and frowned. “Your own invention?”
“Most of my gadgets are, yes.” Draenvir studied his pen and turned it over a few times before making notes, flipping back and forth between pen designs and plans for the temple. “Also, we’ll need to see the temple, too. Falustus won’t argue; he’s bored.”
Varis sighed, a twinge of relief sinking into his very core. Sadness still permeated the air, an underlying sensation of missing joy with a percolating excitement.
“Sirs?” A polite knock at the doorpost brought Varis’s attention away from his internal thoughts, his sight greeted by Rydel and an unknown dragon at his back, a vision of ruby.
Red hair, eyes not the color and black he was accustomed to, but rather pits of emptiness, gleaming like polished obsidian.
“Graylan!” Ghreid rose to stand and welcomed the male as an equal, and Varis rose, too, followed in tow by his fathers.
Ghreid and Graylan exchanged a formal shake of hands, a half hug, and whispered condolences that strayed into a hopeful stare pinned to Varis. A sudden urge to recoil knotted in Varis’s belly. This alpha was not family, but somehow… Varis held his ground and gave a polite nod of his head.
The dragon approached, brows furrowed, eyes narrowed not with suspicion but curiosity. “Is this your lovely bearer, Varis, I presume?”
Varis nodded as Ghreid puffed with pride.
“It is lovely to meet you. Pardon me not addressing you directly, but, Ghreid, is he usually this standoffish?” Graylan held no offense in his tone, but Varis flinched at it all the same.
“Ordinarily the picture of a social butterfly.” Ghreid glanced between the two, his face soft and besotted, an expression that had no business on his hard, beautiful features.
“With Asha, it was always so hard to tell, he capered so much. But I see the reticence as a symptom.” Graylan shook his hands, fire flowing over them in a whipping and muted display, only visible for a blink before he rolled his sleeves up. “May I?”
Varis cleared his throat and glanced at his fathers before giving a quick nod, unsure of what to do.
Graylan waited for nothing further and stepped forward, one hand on Varis’s shoulder and the other at his chest, sliding it lower, face twisting in concern.
“Well, you already know more than I do. Two, just like Asha.”
“Am I always going to be compared to him?” Varis sighed. “This might get old.”
“No, you’re something else entirely. Water-based, flowing.
So, Asha has true fire in him. You have water.
You’ll need to swim often, which I assume won’t be a problem.
You enjoy it, do you not?” Graylan cupped his hand and gently rubbed below Varis’s navel.
His scent was unoffensive, despite not being family, and he felt soothing to be near and less threatening as moments passed.
“So, I carry… Their souls?” Varis cleared his throat.
“I have no idea whose souls you carry, dear, nor do any of us. It is auspicious timing, nothing more. They will be children in time, dragons, and you need concern yourself with nothing more. It’s for naming and honor alone.
” Graylan rolled his palm gently, the motion making Varis’s belly flop with a wave of nausea.
“Shhh, you’re fine. My magic can be a little overwhelming. ”
“What is it you’re doing?” Varis flinched and sighed in relief when Graylan pulled his hand back and smiled.
“Well, I always worry with ashen a little about anatomy finalizing, especially when they conceive so soon after their first transformation. I rearranged your blood flow just a bit to better support things. Healthier incubation and all that.” Graylan pulled back and gave a beaming grin to Ghreid, full of fang and joy.
“Two healthy ovum, fertilized and ready to come into the world. I’d say you’ll lay in another ten weeks if the moon has any say in it. ”
Varis blinked as a cold flush went through him. “Uh, about that. Will we still… Will the full moon—”
“If you’re gravid—no. Your mate will be amorous, but he will respond to your scent. If you do not flare, he will not, either.” Graylan gestured and cleared his throat. “Slathar, stop hovering. Come in.”
Graylan whipped around and stared at the doorway as the pale vision of Rath’s brother stood there, face impassive. “I’d rather miss that conversation you’re about to have.”
“Well, dear, it’s simple nature. Perhaps if you were to couple one day—” Graylan flinched when Slath scoffed. “As unlikely as that is.”
“Sorry…” Varis gave Slath his most practiced sheepish expression. “Because your loss—”
Slath waved his hand. “We made our peace a long time ago—what of it there was to have. I was speaking of your questions about bedding my brother.”
“Perhaps you should regale me with your bedroom antics to make us even?” Varis pursed his lips apologetically.
“What bedroom antics? Slathar doesn’t entertain bedservants or court.” Draenvir snorted, and Varis caught a wide-eyed and very guilty look splashed across Graylan’s face, turned from him.
“Shows what you know,” Slath muttered, but Varis had a feeling he knew.
“Who?” Ghreid sat up, suddenly interested. “Surely n—”
“Graylan and I will be sharing quarters while here, and yes, we are fucking.” Slath stared Ghreid down. “And congratulations.”
Ghreid and Draenvir flinched, and both sets of judgmental eyes flicked toward Graylan.
“Your Highnesses…” He held up his hands before clearing his throat.
“Father expressly forbade you from—” Ghreid stood, shoulders pinched.
“Father is dead. I can stop pretending. We fuck. Get over it.” Slath brushed his hair back with clawed fingers and turned on his heel.
Draenvir and Ghreid stared, mouth open as Graylan took a step back, hands raised. Attention snapped to him as Slath traipsed out of view.
“I—don’t have a good excuse.” Graylan cleared his throat. “Who am I to decline the advances of a prince?”
“You’re a hundred years older than Father was.” Ghreid shook his head, upper lip curling.
“When?” Draenvir gestured to Graylan.
“When I had to be at the castle all the time to see to Asha.” Graylan ran a hand through his hair. “It’s… Very complicated.”
“He’s no child. Let him make his own mistakes.” Ghreid sighed heavily. “Hurt our brother and we will hurt you.”
“I have a duty to the health of my patients. Varis is my patient. I also realize that dragons are not immortal and if anyone could spill my blood and go unpunished, it would be his brothers, so I assure you, anything that happens is at his lead.” Graylan cleared his throat.
Varis cleared his throat. “As much as I love to hear juicy gossip, Slath is my brother now, and I’ll be off to harass him a little.
If I am in good health, as the good doctor has confirmed, I will keep another of my persuasion company until such time as we should retire to bed.
Don’t murder my only source of care, please? ”
Varis rested a hand on Graylan’s shoulder. “I’ll be in the guest quarters if you need to relay anything else to me. I’ll be sure to get to know my new family better, in the meantime. I adored Asha.”
Ghreid laughed and waved Varis on.
Varis turned to leave, and his fathers moved closer in to greet the dragons, probably with questions of their own, but for the time being, he felt his place was with Slath. He needed someone on his side. Besides, Slath was probably the more reliable source for the juicy details.